5 - Richie Tozier Parties Too Hard
by DeTrashmouth
Summary: Part 5; Drunk on his fame and distraught by recent events, Richie decides to live it up, but it may mean dying in the process.


All was fairly quiet in Hollywood that night.

That was, until The Edgar Winter Group's 'Frankenstein' suddenly roared through Richie Tozier's penthouse as maximum volume, just about loud enough to shatter his windows and the lenses in his glasses. But as the saying went, 'if it's too loud, you're too old,' and Rich hadn't quite hit that point yet. Bring on the ringing in his ears, he'd rock till he went deaf or his heart gave out. Which at this point, the latter was probably going to strike first.

"FFFFFFuuuck!" Richie yelped in absolute pleasure as he rose up from the desk, where he had just inhaled four thick lines of pure cocaine, each with loud snorts from his right nostril, now burning red with delightful soreness. The drugs soared straight up to his brain as he rubbed his nose, making sure not a spec had been wasted.

He had been legally single again for about a week, after two years of what turned out to be nothing but another lie, and had been livin' it up (L-I-V-I-N') on a bender of drugs, alcohol, and rock'n'roll since last Tuesday. Or, was it, Wednesday? Fuck it, he would just consider it Friday and use it as another excuse to party some more. Everyone coped with loss in their own way, and maybe five years ago, Richie Tozier would have just been found sobbing in bed until he had no tears left to spill. But this was Rich Records, baby! And Rich Records drowned his sorrows with partying.

"You're still not hard..." A mousy voice called out from under the desk, prompting Richie to give a high-pitched yelp again, this time startled as all Hell.

"Oh SHHHIIIT-!" Richie exclaimed, sniffing some more and wiping his nose, honestly throwing his hands up in defense. "...I forgot you were down there."

Richie scooted back in his chair and from beneath the desk and his favorite red Cashmere robe, the young girl appeared. She wasn't too young, mid-twenties or so, just young by comparison in his ripe old age now. She'd approached him at a little shindig earlier that night, some kind of celebrity-groupie of sorts. Said she was 'ready to party,' so they hopped in his Mustang and had spent the last few hours partying it up.

That all seemed like a blur to him now, he'd been with someone new each night over the week. No one he'd call special, just someone to spend a little quality time with and hopefully ease his pain and loneliness. They were all a dime a dozen, but of course he wouldn't mention that fact. Or, that he'd already forgotten this ones name. Had he even asked? He wasn't so sure of anything anymore.

"Having fun down there?" Richie asked, looking down at her with a grin.

"Yea'!" She called out to him, her voice seemed to echo as if she were down a dark tunnel. "I can't believe I'm suckin' off Rich Records!" The girl giggled.

"You think das' somethin'?" Richie said, in the thick accent of Andrew Dice Clay. "You shud' take'a look back thah at whatchar' motha's doin' to mah' aaaasshole! Ohh!"

"..Huh?" the girl asked, confused, and honestly went to peek behind him, poor gullible thing. He simply waved her off.

"Nothing, just a joke," he sniffed again.

"Oh.. hehehe," she faked a laugh. "Should I keep goin'... or?"

Richie merely shrugged, honestly ignoring her and the event taking place down below. He didn't feel anything anymore. He was a walking pile of shit and utter numbness. Physically, at least. Emotionally, he still felt it all, the pain, the depression. Just needed another bump, is all. His greatest defense against those stupid goddamn feelings.

"Yea', a'rite," Richie said as Ringo Starr, "Das a guud girl, den... keep'on nommin, eh. He's bo'und t' wake 'ep soonah 'r lat'ar."

The girl smirked and before going back to business, her eyes wandered upward, at what was keeping his focus from the table.

"Ooh," Richie grinned, dabbing a bit of his party favor on the back of his hand and reaching downward. "Need some motivation, do we? Go on, then..."

She covered one of her nostrils and proceeded to snort the drug off of his hand, gasping and then sighing happily, and then went back to taking care of business.

"... _It does get bigger, right..?" _Richie heard the girl ask from his lap, causing him to wince.

"Don't talk with your mouth full, dear," he snapped back, annoyed.

This was all really ruining his buzz, listing to her babble on, sitting there wondering what his life had become, where, at what point, did it begin on such a downward spiral as it was now? He wasn't dense, he knew she was only doing now not to enjoy the quantity time spent with him as a person, just for bragging rights (or complaints) later on, to say she partied with someone famous.

That's how they all treated him. Ever since his divorce and learning his whole marriage had been a sham... Every person he sought attention from afterwards never intended to see him again after a quick roll in the sheets. Not because they truly loved him. Who would, right? A huge fucking phony like 'Rich Records?' No. Never. This is what his life had become, he realized. He was just a story for people to gossip about now.

He stared there looking at the lines of coke on his desk, begging to be snorted so it could snow like there was going to be a blizzard in his brain. Rich lit up a cigarette, letting the smoke burn his lungs and then flow out of his mouth, as he looked down back at his lap and at the girl who was doing nothing for him.

"Fuck it," He spoke to himself and leaned forward, grabbing at his little black straw and began doing the lines. Not just a few of them, all of them. One after the other. Richie zig-zagged his way through the powder, not daring to stop until he reached the very end.

That, as he would come to find out in the next few minutes, turned out to be a serious mistake.

It occurred to Richie after he sat back and felt like he had a sudden case of the sniffles, that the girl he was with had said she brought 'a little something extra to the party!' He hadn't really been paying attention to her because, well, when did he ever give anyone more attention than he gave himself? But now, as he was wiping his nose and feeling the drugs working their way up to his brain, something felt... Different.

He wasn't sure yet if he'd simply done too much at once, or if she had maybe added 'extra flavor' to the mix, but one thing for sure, he had never suffered such a nose bleed from a few dozen lines like this. Rusty pipes? He didn't think so.

"Hey ..." Richie tried to call to the girl, but his voice seemed to slur to slow motion. "Hhheeeyy..." He looked down at his hand, which left a trail of faded echoes every which way he moved it. "_Did... You... Put...Something...In...This..." _He asked, or tried to.

The girl bounced up so fast he thought she was a demon for two seconds, moving at a sped-up rate in contrast to his own slow-motion.

"Hehehehehhehehee," the girl laughed like a rabid hyena. "..hah...hah..." he laughed back, but he wasn't sure why. "Just a little bit of DMT! Hehehehehe!" With that, she disappeared under the desk again, leaving Richie sitting there dumbfounded. "..DM...What.." Rich attempted to ask.

Where the fuck had he heard that term before? Richie wondered as the music slowly died out and he was left listening to the faint echos of the girls giggles, which sounded more like a witches' cackle now. Looking down at the fresh blood on his hand again, he suddenly slammed his hand against his chest. His heartbeat was beginning to pick up in pace.

Ba-Doop! Ba-Doop!...

Ba-Doop! - Ba-Doop! - Ba-Doop!

Ba-Doop! Ba-Doop! Ba-Doop!

Ba-Doop! Ba-Doop! Ba-Doop!

Ba-Doop! Ba-Doop! Ba-Doop! Ba-Doop!

"...Hah, shit. I don't ...feel so good... "

Rich found himself in such a deepening, lost thought, surrounded by the darkness of everything his life had come to dwell. He could make himself as physically numb as possible, but it never stopped the emotions from scratching at the surface. The little voices in his head, some of the characters he did, others he didn't know who or what they were, but they all seemed to share the commonality of reminding him how much of a loser he truly had been, and was always destined to be;

Kinky Briefcase, The Sexual Accountant came to him first. "'You need my card if you can't get hard!'" The voice teased him. "And sonny, it looks to me like that's the least of your problems tonight!"

"Well it's like I always said, Rich...'If at first you don't succeed, try, try again. Then quit!" The voice of W.C. Fields seemed to bark at him next. "But quittin' is for losers, ain't it, ya damn fool?!"

"You've been a peach, my deah Mista Tozzah," Colonel Buford Kissdrivel sang to him in his little tune of a thick Southern drawl. "A Jawja peach, but yore time is neahly ova!"

"_Batches?!" _Pancho Vanilla's voice asked him. "_Rich doan need noh stinkin batches! He got' everyt'ing he need' right thereh in fron'uh him, doantcha!_"

"_Paper or plastic for these pills to maintain what's left of your sanity, Mr. Tozier?!" _His character, Wyatt the homicidal bag-boy shrieked. "_WhAtEvEr RiCh ReCoRdS wAnTs hE gEts, RiGHT? BeEp BEeP RiCHie! Hahahaha!"_

"_Thingsh are never scho bad, they can't be made worshe, Traschmouth_," Humphrey Bogart said to him. "_And thingsh are about to get a whoooole lot worshe for you, buddy boy."_

"_Aaaaand now! Time to watch the deeeeestruction of one RRRRRRRich Reeeecords Tozierrrrr!" _The MovieTone Newsreel Narrator voice suddenly called out in his head. _"It's going to be one Heeeeeelluva battle! Will he survive? Staaaaaaaaaaaay tuned!"_

"Shut up.. Shaddup! SHUT THE FUCK UP! All of you!" Richie randomly screamed at nobody. They were all in his head. Just voices. That's all.

'_Rebel, Rebel_' by Bowie was playing from his stereo now, and the sounds of the music felt like it was being roared right into his ear-drums, making him slam his hands over his ears.

"Ahhh! I need this... off... I gotta turn this off."

Rich fiddled with the remote to his stereo, but only managed to drop it and cause the batteries to burst out of the back and roll away onto the floor. SHIT. He stood up and turned away, dragging the girl with him who seemed to be literally attached at his hips in a death-grip.

"'Scuse me, dear," Richie said, trying his best to work his way out of her straddle.

When he finally escaped, he ran to the stereo system tried to turn it off, but the on/off switch didn't seem to have any effect. "Okay, seriously, what the fuck!" Panicking now, he began to try hitting all the buttons, turning every knob, but the music just wouldn't stop. It screeched at him and played backwards, and forwards at an extra high rate, before he finally slammed his fist into it and the stereo landed on dark psychedelic 80's group Oingo Boingo, as their smash hit 'Who do you want to be today' began playing. It was too much for Richie right now.

"FUCK! STOP IT!"

Richie tried to just knock the stereo down, but something was preventing him from doing so.

"...Boy, Ah say, ah say, ah say boy, you bes' not be doin' dat!" Richie looked up to see not just the voice of, but the ACTUAL cartoon character of Foghorn Leghorn right before his eyes, lounging on his fucking stereo like he owned the place. ".. You gotta be fuckin' kiddin' me..." "Whaaa's da big idea!?" Foghorn continued, waving his finger at him. "Ya bes' sit yo ol' tirad ass down now, Trash. Dis shit righ'here'sa 'bout ta get freakah, ah say boy!" "No, you're not real, you're just a cartoon from when I was a fucking kid..." Foghorn glared at him, and shot him a gesture that he never would have back in those days. "Oh fuck you, too!" .. Richie thought to himself for a moment, blood still streaming down his nose, and then he slapped his own forehead. "Whaaat the fuck am I doing, I'm talking to a fucking cartoon character, come on!"

Richie turned around, away from the cartoon on his stereo. But that's when the shit, as Foghorn had warned him it would, really did get freaky.

".._Oh shit_."

Rich Records was having a **BAD TRIP**

The whole penthouse seemed to warp around Richie then, transporting him into what looked like a Picasso painting of his life as he knew it. His home looked abstract as vibrant colors of paint ran right off the walls, flooding and splashing everything he owned.

Richie tried to run, but no matter which way he turned, he ran into the visual of one of his characters.

Colonel Buford Kissdrivel was to his left, standing there looking like a proper caricature of a Southern Gent, smirking at him. "_Ah do declaaare, you are going to diae tonaght, Mista Tozzah_."

"NO!"

Kinky Briefcase to his right. "_Ya might think about consulting a physician if you experience an erection lasting more than five hours, pal!"_

"AHH!" Richie screamed and tried to run, this time it was Pancho Vanilla in his big ridiculous sombrero.

"_Batches?!" _Pancho asked, and then laughed. "_You doan need no stinkin' batches where YYYORE GOIN, SENORRRR_!"

"LEAVE ME THE FUCK ALONE!" Richie turned again, but this time he ran right smack dab into Wyatt the homicidal bag-boy, who looked like a maniac out of a Jhonen Vasquez comic. Richie fell to his knees, looking up at the skeletal skinny freak.

"_PaPeR oR pLaAaAaAaAsTiC, FUCKER?!" _Wyatt held up a bloody meat cleaver in one hand, and a plastic bag in the other. Blood was leaking from the bag, and when he gave it a little shake, the bag slipped off and he revealed to be holding the decapitated head of Richie Tozier, decaying with maggots leaking from beneath the cracked, bloody lenses of his glasses, and smiling his big, phony smile, even though his lips were morbidly stitched together.

Richie screamed, having his own head shoved in his face, which then, too, ripped the stitches from it's lips and screamed right back at him in a higher pitch, before laughing, and laughing, and laughing.

"AHHHHH! WHAAAT THE ..FFFUCK IS THIS!? WHAT IS THIS!? I WANT IT TO BE OVER GODDAMNIT!"

Richie rolled away, crawling before he grabbed onto the edge of his leather sofa and pulled himself to his feet, trying to get away from the deafening music that was making his ears ring to the core. But the music playing wasn't just from his stereo anymore...

From across the room, Oingo Boingo themselves stood on a little stage playing the song. Except it wasn't Danny Elfman and the crew, it was their lively corpses, the flesh melting off their skeletons, all clinging to instruments, their fingernails ripping off and withering away and somehow still with functioning organs, and chunks of flesh hanging off their bones. The singers left eye literally popped from its socket and dangled in front of him as he sang.

_WHO DO YOU WANT TO BE TODAY?! _  
_WHO DO YOU WANT TO BE?! _  
_WHO DO YOU WANT TO BE TODAY?! _  
_DO YOU WANT TO BE JUST LIKE - SOMEONE ON TV?!_

_OH BOREDOM IS SO TERRIBLE, IT'S LIKE A DREAD DISEASE! _  
_NOTHING COULD BE WORSE THAN WHEN THERE'S NOTHING ON TV! _  
_I'D RATHER BE A COWBOY THAN TO STARE BLANK AT THE WALLS!_  
_ I'VE BEEN REBORN SO MANY TIMES, I CAN'T REMEMBER THEM ALL AND I SAY-_

_WHO DO YOU WANT TO BE TODAY?! _  
_WHO DO YOU WANT TO BE?! _  
_WHO DO YOU WANT TO BE TODAY?! _  
_DO YOU WANT TO BE JUST LIKE SOMEONE ON TV?! _

_JUST LIKE SOMEONE ON TV, RIGHT?! _  
_DON'T YOU WANT TO BE SOMEONE ON TV RICHIE?! _  
_RICH RECORDS TOZIER, THE BIG FUCKING PHONY!_  
_HAHAHAHHAHAAAAAAA!? _

"Oh my .. FUCKING GOD!" Richie screamed, knocking his glasses off his face and covering his eyes with his palms, smearing the blood from his nose all over his face.

"FOR FUCKS SAKE MAKE IT STOP! STOP IT! LEAVE ME ALONE! STOP IT! ALL OF YOU JUST LEAVE ME ALONE! IT'S NOT REAL! NONE OF YOU ARE FUCKING REALLLLL!"

Richie turned to run one last time in a ditch effort to escape, do or die. But this time, the figure that blocked him was that of Richie Tozier himself. Or, maybe more so it was the Rich Records persona he had created. Wearing a suit jacket, with an AC/DC t-shirt and jeans, shattered glasses with maggots seeping out of his eyes. This version of Richie was the one he feared the most; the dead one. His mouth was stitched up, but using a microphone with a knife that flung open from the handle like a switch-blade, Dead-Richie slit the stitches open and opened his mouth to speak as maggots poured out.

"_**Am I real enough for you?" **_Dead-Richie asked in a gurgled voice. "_**I should be. I am you. I am your future. Take a good look, Trashmouth..." **_It tilted its head to the side, more maggots falling out of his other orfices, and smiled a giant, shit-eating grin at him.

...

And then - Silence.

As Rich opened his eyes, he saw that the characters were gone. The girl, whatever her name was, remained the only other figure there in the room with him, and shouting at him. Suddenly she was pulled from his vision as everything went blurry and he was looking up at the ceiling, from what he could see of it.

Richie realized he had fallen down to the floor, slam, landing flat on his ass. The girl reappeared in the blurred peripheral and it looked like she was on the phone, shouting, but he heard nothing. Slowly, he saw nothing as well. Black spots began to takeover what little sight he had left, and he was left all alone in that darkness, listening to only the sound of his rapidly beating heart. Which, was slowly now. Passing the beating of a normal race and slowly... slowly... slowing... down...

ba-doop... ba-doop ...ba-doop ...

ba-doop... ba-doop...

...

...

...

beep...

beep... beep...

beep...beep...

beep...beep...

...

"..'Beep beep, Richie,'" he lowly groaned, as he struggled to open up his eyes.

It was so bright where he was now. Was this heaven? Was he seeing the bright light everyone spoke of? Somehow, he doubted it. And it was no longer the sound of his heart beat he heard, but the sound of the machines in the very bright hospital room that were keeping him alive now.

Richie groaned, trying to move but feeling himself to be paralyzed. It felt like he was being weighed down by a million canon balls now. What he could feel, however, was the slick plastic of his glasses in his right hand. Right up to the tubing of the I.V. in his arm.

"What... the fuck..." He tried to maneuver in the bed, but couldn't.

"'What the fuck,' indeed, Rich," the familiar voice of his manager, Steve, said from across the room with stern disappointment in his tone.

"Steve?" Rich asked weakly. "Wh... where am I? What happened?"

"You're in the Saint Joseph Medical Center, and you had a heart attack, is what the fuck happened. Aside effect of the blow you snorted. Did you know it was laced with _Dimethyltryptamine_? What the fuck were you doing with that shit?!"

"_Dimeth..." _ It hit Richie then, he groaned. "_DMT. _Fuuuuck."

"Yeeeeah," Steve said.

Richie could get one eye open and through his blurred vision, barely make out that he was standing there with his arms crossed, looking down at him now. In that moment, he reminded Richie of his father, Wentworth. That bastard was always so disappointed in him, much as Steve was now.

"I was with some chick I met up in the Hills, she must have added that shit to it when I wasn't paying attention-"

"Which you NEVER ARE, RICH!" Steve screamed at him. "You're always in your own little fucking world! The La-La-Whatever the fuck- Rich Records-land!"

"It's cheaper than Disney," Rich said, smirking, figuring he'd get a laugh. Steve did not appease him.

"This isn't fucking funny, man. You don't get it. You could have fucking died tonight, Rich!" Steve screamed again, trying at once to hush his voice. "Do you know what that would have done to my reputation? The agent who hires down-on-his-luck fucking drug addicts who OD?" Steve hissed in a rough whisper.

"Well," Rich said, defeated, "We wouldn't want that to happen. Got forbid my untimely death wounded your career..."

"YOU'RE GODDAMN RIGHT, RICH!"

Steve shook his head, pacing the room with his hands firmly on his hips. Richie just laid there. He attempted to move to get his glasses up to his face, but only got them to his chest before he fell short.

"Look at you," Steve sighed. "You're a fucking mess, Rich. You've dug yourself in a hole that you're just incapable of digging yourself out of, and I'm sick of it, man. I'm done."

"What's that mean, you're 'done?'" Richie asked. "What's that mean, Steve?"

"It means you're on your own from here on out, kid. You're so miserable that want to fucking kill yourself? Go ahead. But I'm not going to be here to help you dig your own grave anymore, buddy. This little stunt of yours is a closing deal for me."

"Oh, come on!" Richie tried to chuckle it off, But Steve couldn't have been serious. "Don't be so melodramatic. You don't wanna quit me! I'm your dream client. I'm the most fun, I'm rich and I'm always in trouble. I'm livin' the dream! L-I-V-I-N'."

"Go to Hell, Rich. The dream is over."

"You know what? Maybe it is. You're fired. I'm representing myself from now on," Richie shot back." "Oh - No, you know what? I am SO tired of you. You're fired!"

"You can't fuckin' fire me! I fired you first!"

The two of them were silent for a moment, before bursting out into laughter. Richie went into a choking fit, and Steve had to rush to his side to hold his chest. "Easy, buddy. Take it easy."

"I always take it easy," Rich coughed. "And if she's easy, I take her twice," he tried to wink, but couldn't quite pull it off.

It was in this moment that Steve pushed himself away from Richie, and shook his head. He couldn't do this anymore. The fun times were over. This joke had no punch-line.

"Break a leg, kid," Steve said, and that was that. He made his exit to the door. "Or as you would say, 'Thank you, fuck you and until next time,' right?"

Richie waited until Steve was damn well near out the door, when his opossum playing finally came to an end and he broke character, so to speak.

"Steve, wait! I'm sorry! Come back." Richie called out frantically, beckoning him to stay. "I don't know what's happened to me, I don't know what I want to do, and I'm sorry I'M SUCH A FUCKING FAILURE! OKAY?!"

Richie used what little strength he had and managed to throw his glasses across the room, figuring they would shatter, almost hoping they would in all honesty. They wouldn't help him right now anyway, his eyes were burning red with tears welling up and pouring down his cheeks with no stopping in sight.

Steve had in fact stopped, he stood half in the doorway and half in the hallway of the hospital, hands in the pockets of his expensive suit and slumped over, looking at the pitiful sight that was once Richie Tozier. Richie couldn't see him, but he knew, somehow, that he was still there.

"I need help, Steve," Richie sobbed. "Okay? I'm so fucked up. I just need help. But no one.. No one wants to help me! All they want from me is another laugh! Another voice! It's all I'm fucking worth anymore and I just need help!" "Alright, Rich," Steve said. "Alright, calm the hell down, I'm still here."

Steve had made his way back over to the side of Richie's bed and took his hand, seeing the poor guy like this almost broke his heart. Almost.

"I'll help... But I don't want to hear any of your shit if I'm going to stick around to clean up your messes." Steve bent down and retrieved Richie's glasses from the floor, tossing them back at his chest. Much to his surprise, they hadn't broke from the assault. When he picked them up, there wasn't even a scratch on them. Go figure.

"Fine," Richie agreed, no jokes to be made this time. He replaced his specs to his face.

"I want you to go to rehab. Get yourself detoxed, get all that shit out of your system and I'll do my best to keep your names out of the papers. Prove to me you can complete a 90-day stint and then we'll go from there."

"Alright," Richie said, trying to put his arms up, surrendering. "Yeah. Alright..."

He checked into a secure rehab facility the next morning, being admitted under the pseudonym of 'Aloysius Nell' to remain as anonymous as possible. He didn't exactly know where that name came from or who it belonged to, but suddenly Richie heard the voice of the old cop say in his head and had to smile;

'Ye want to work on that a bit. As of now, ye sound about as Irish as Groucho Marx!'

Richie spent a lot of time to himself in the facility. Detox was the worse, the withdraw was nearly as bad as that near-fatal heart-attack and in times like that, he sometimes wish he hadn't survived at all. There were other celebrities there, but Richie didn't approach them. He only spoke in group, when everyone just sat around putting up with the pity parties they each were throwing, and waiting impatiently for their own turns to talk. When he first arrived, he remembered seeing a line of people in the community room, waiting to look out of a window.

'_Schmucks_,' he thought, and brushed them off. But at the end of the first week, Rich found himself standing in that same line, just to get a glimpse of the outside world. Not that there was even all that much to see, it was just the view of an empty alleyway. But it was something, and something was always better than nothing. Rich had learned to appreciate the little things in life. Only now did he realize how fragile it truly could be.

On day 89, he spoke to the doctors about being discharged from the clinic, though they weren't sure he was ready. As adamant as Rich was that he wanted to get out there live his life right this time, it turned out that they were the only ones not fooled by his lies. They saw under the mask, they had gotten to spend three months with the real Richard Lionel Tozier. And truth be told? That scared the hell out of him. They advised that he remain in the facility to be treated for his manic depression and severe anxiety, but this was up to him. Any time he spent at the clinic after completing his 90 days was completely mandatory, and he was ready to get the hell out of there.

On his last night, after packing his few positions so he could leave first thing bright and early, he received a call from his manager. Steve was ecstatic to hear that despite a few close-calls in the first month, Richie had completed his treatment with 'flying colors!'

Steve went on and on about how he had some gigs lined up and how the clubs couldn't wait to get their precious _'Rich Records_' back on their stages.

"Uh huh..." Richie said idly into the phone.

Steve kept talking, but Richie had only heard a few of the first words he spoke. Instead, he began to lose himself in thought. He hadn't been able to listen to music during his stay at the facility and of all things in the world, that's what he missed the most. Instead of hearing Steve flabbergasted about 'the famous return of Rich Records,' Richie's mind slowly drifted to the slow, soothing tune of Iron & Wine's 'Upward Over The Mountain.'

The last thing he heard Steve ask before he hung the phone up, was if he thought he was going to be okay, like truly okay from now on. And he figured he was expected to answer him as honestly as he could. Richie simply said, 'I don't know, man. I really just don't know.'"

_Mother don't worry, I killed the last snake, that lived in the creek bed... _  
_Mother don't worry, I've got some money I saved for the weekend... _  
_Mother remember, being so stern with that girl who was with me? _  
_Mother remember, the blink of an eye, when I breathed through your body?_

_So, may the sunrise bring hope where it once was forgotten... _  
_Sons are like birds, flying upward, over the mountain..._

_Mother I made it up from the bruise on the floor of this prison... _  
_Mother I lost it, all of the fear of the Lord I was given... _  
_Mother forget me now that the creek drank the cradle you sang to... _

_Mother forgive me, I sold your car for the shoes that I gave you..._  
_So, may the sunrise bring hope, where it once was forgotten... _  
_Sons could be birds, taken broken up to the mountain..._

_Mother don't worry, I've got a coat, and some friends on the corner... _  
_Mother don't worry, she's got a garden, we're planting together... _  
_Mother remember, the night that the dog had her pups in the pantry? _  
_Blood on the floor, fleas on their paws... And you cried 'til the morning..._

_So, may the sunrise bring hope, where it once was forgotten _  
_Sons are like birds, flying always, over the mountain ... _


End file.
